30 Days Wild - 2022

 Today's the first of June so it must be the start of the Wildlife Trusts' #30DaysWild.

This annual initiative aims to encourage us all to live our lives a little wilder - maybe have a picnic in the park, a bug hunt in the back garden or a long ramble in the countryside. There's something really that every age group can become involved in. I'm likely to be doing the gentler sort of activity - sowing the wildflowers seeds from my #30DaysWild pack, watching the birds in and around my garden, collecting elderflowers to make fizz, or a walk in search of wild flowers. Having joined in before, I find it's a wonderful encouragement to just stop for five minutes, look around, and notice all the signs of 'wildness' about you. I live on a suburban housing estate but there are birds, wild flowers and 'weeds', bugs and beetles, bats and occasionally foxes (generally heard yapping at night rather than seen). A lot more 'wildness' than you might expect.

My postal #30DaysWild pack contains a calendar for the month to either plan or record activities. I'm not good at planning so will be using it to keep track of what I've done.  

If you haven't heard of this initiative, or have forgotten to sign up for this year, details can be found here. 

30 Days Wild - week 4 (and a bit)

I'm late getting round to writing up this last week of #30DaysWild because it's been a busy out and about week, though most of my wild adventures still took place in the back garden. There are new flowers opening to attract bees and other insects - lavender alongside the path, calendulas, and the first flowers on a root of fox and cubs which I moved from my parents' garden.






















There've been wild visitors of all sizes from magpies at the bird bath to a shield beetle who thought I looked like a good place to rest. One warm evening I spotted bats flying about the garden- which was exciting but a bit worrying as I thought they might fly in through the open patio doors (this happened to me once in a holiday cottage, and it's terrifying for both the bat and the person trying to persuade it back outside). A safer sighting was of a swallow (I think) high above the roof top.

On my trips out I saw glorious wildflowers among more formal bedding at Kedleston, Chatsworth and  Calke Abbey

But this was favourite thing of the week - a coot making it's nest in the middle of an ornamental pond at Chatsworth.

30 Days Wild - week 3

It's been a busy week for wildlife in the garden, particularly round the bird bath with robins, pigeons, blackbirds and even a magpie dropping by. One day a baby robin sat  in the water while one of its parents flew back and forth with food for it! No more appearances from the squirrel though.

If you can separate wildlife into two categories of 'good' and 'bad', birds and even the squirrel fall in the former. In the other group are slugs (found nestled in the middle of one of my cabbages), and these sawfly caterpillars which I found eating away all the leaves on the solomon's seal. It's fortunate for the caterpillars that they've got a rather niche taste in food, and are reputed to not eat anything other than this one plant; it's finished flowering, and doesn't look attractive with its leaves stripped, but will recover, so I squirted some of the bugs away with a water spray, and left the rest to their dinner.  

One evening, after yet another wet day, I went out for a stroll around the nearby playing fields and found signs of autumn already on the way!

And on the solstice I went out to see the sun set. It wasn't remarkable but I listened to the birds singing their goodnight songs, and on the way home saw bats flitting about

30 Days Wild - week 2

It's been an exciting sort of wild week - from garden visitors to wild thundery weather.

The week started quietly with watching bees in the garden - favourite flowers appear to be cotoneaster that covers the side of the garage, perennial geraniums of all colours, foxgloves, and flowers on the sage plants. It turns out they're not interested in scented flowers such as roses and sweet peas, though I know they love lavender (which will flower soon).

Tuesday was busy with unusual garden visitors. First I was astounded to see a squirrel running about on the patio, barely a socially distanced two metres from where I was sitting inside. They often run along the back fence, and I assume they raid the bird feeders at times but I've never seen one approach this close to the house. Then it appeared again in the afternoon! Meanwhile in the compost heap, a mouse was busy finding dinner. Although they're fairly regular visitors, I haven't seen one for a while, so was quite startled - so was the mouse. In future I'll lift the bin lid off slowly.

On dry days the bird bath has been busy with visitors - mainly robins, pigeons, blackbirds, but occasionally goldfinches, sparrows and blue tits turn up.
Larger birds have been squabbling in the front garden rowan and along the road - crows, blackbirds, possibly a magpie (they're generally the trouble-starters) - and a pair of pigeons have been trying to nest there - they seem to have very little idea about nest-building, and the one in the back garden has fallen out of the tree a couple of times.

The highlight of the week though was seeing goslings at Locko Park. I'd gone there just for some open countryside and although I knew geese lived there, hadn't expected the huge families swimming round the lake. Most of the youngsters (Pinkfoots possibly) were being safety corralled in the middle of the lake but the Canada geese with older goslings were on the banks

Back to Locko

Locko was the last place we went out to before lockdown, so it really ought to have been the first we returned to, but as it was, last weekend we went to Shipley, as there's more space there to avoid others if it's busy, so it was only Saturday evening that we went back to Locko.

It's a good place to visit at the moment - not far from home, the 'footpath' is a good wide road to the hall, there's a huge open area by the lake if anyone wants to sit and picnic, and there's little car parking so not many people visit.

We'd only intended to walk down to the lake but the evening was so nice that we carried on a little way, following a footpath up to a wood where there are lovely views back over the park, then through the trees, listening to the birdsong around us, before re-tracing our steps.

As with the trip to Shipley, it was lovely to get out, away from houses and traffic, to see no one other than a few walkers, to walk under trees, and even to see cows grazing in the distance.

The highlight though was seeing the numerous goslings, mostly out on the lake accompanied by watchful parents, though the Canada geese were braver (and their goslings a little older) and had taken up a spot on the grassy bank.

Getting out of town again - a short walk at Shipley

It's been eleven weeks since I've walked anywhere other than around the local housing estate, and I'm getting concerned that I'm not taking enough exercise. There are playing fields and a wood within easy distance of home, but they've been crowded throughout lockdown and anyway I wanted to see proper open fields and countryside. 

Shipley Country Park seemed like a good place to head to - it's generally not busy, especially late in the afternoon of a dull day, and the walk follows a private road with lots of space for passing other folks, rather than the narrow footpaths that have proved a problem in our local wood.

It turned out that a lot of people had perhaps thought the same things, as the car park was busier than I've ever seen it, but there was space enough for everyone and keeping a good distance away from anyone was easy.

I was right about my lack of fitness. The road heads uphill from the car park, not steeply but generally enough to leave me out of breath before it flattens out. This time I had to stop a LOT on the way up!  My legs and lungs have totally got out of the walking habit.

Because of this, I thought it best to cut the walk shorter than usual - up the hill, then a stroll through the beech trees of Horsepool Hill and back down to the car. Even that didn't quite go to plan. The woodland paths were a little slippery, and cautiously making my way downhill I managed to twist a knee, so now I'm intermittently hobbling.

It was good to get out though - to see miles across fields, to walk under trees, and to spot wildflowers growing -especially as this month I'm following the Wildlife Trusts' 30 Days Wild challenge.  As soon as my knee recovers then I'll be off out somewhere again. Life is maybe gradually returning to normal, and I'm more enthusiastic about walking in the countryside than heading to the shops.

Lockdown Week 11 - June 2nd - 8th

Time definitely seems to move differently under lockdown, and this has been another week when I seem to have busy all the time but don't really have anything to show for it.

It's also been another up and down week.

With the relaxation of lockdown rules my eldest daughter was able to come and visit, bringing her toddler for a more-or-less socially distanced afternoon in the garden. Neither of them has been out and about during these past few weeks so we judged it okay to meet up now before my grandson heads back to nursery.
My younger daughter lives further away, in an almost-city-centre flat rather than a house-with-garden in the suburbs, and has seen more people, walking to shops or in the park, than the rest of the family, so reluctantly we decided it wasn't really practical or safe to visit for her birthday at the end of the week. Instead we bought presents online, trying to avoid the big guys wherever possible and use small businesses, and joined in via video messaging to see her open her them. Better safe than sorry is still my motto for getting through this period. 

After so many weeks of hardly interrupted sunshine, the weather has turned unpleasant with wind and rain, forcing me to stay indoors, but I've still managed to join in with the Wildlife Trusts' 30 Days Wild, the garden is coming on well with summer flowers opening and fruit ripening, and we've actually started the wallpapering project planned back in March!

I found I've lost some of my enthusiasm for live-streamed gigs. At first I really enjoyed these - they help raise funds for musicians who can't work, and keep me in contact with the music scene - but of late I haven't bothered to watch. Maybe I just saw too many? Certainly I'd never go out to actual gigs as frequently as I've watched them online, so they've stopped becoming an occasional treat. It's going to be a long while before I feel comfortable enough to go to a crowded gig venue so I really ought to make the most of what's available at the moment.

Luckily, live, or at least recorded live, streamed theatre hasn't lost any of its appeal. Friday night is now designated 'theatre night', and this week I watched Tom Hiddleston in the title role of Coriolanus, a National Theatre Live/Donmar Warehouse collaboration. The whole production was brilliant, and Hiddleston amazing
Sunday was time for Romeo and Juliet from the RSC, as part of the BBC's Arts in Quarantine series. We've seen R+J recently from the Globe, back in week 4 of lockdown, and it's always fascinating to see two companies take the same script and interpret it differently. I preferred the RSC version, with Bally Gill and Karen Fishwick in the title roles; my husband said the Globe's version was best.

During these lockdown weeks I haven't ventured out much at all - an occasional walk to the nearby playing fields has been enough - but on Sunday we drove to Shipley Country Park for a proper walk with different views. It was busier than I would expect for a normal overcast day, even at weekend, but the paths are wide and it was easy to avoid people. Getting away from housing and people was great, and I'm wondering where else nearby I could do this regularly.

30 Days Wild 2020 - week one

The Wildlife Trusts are again running their #30DaysWild initiative to encourage us all to observe and connect with nature and wildness around us. Corona virus lockdown makes things harder this year, but I'm determined to join in, even if it's only from my garden. I can still watch bees around the flowers, spot insects crawling through the grass, take a quiet few minutes forest-bathing under the trees, or just watch the rain pounding on the windows - because typically, after weeks of glorious sunshine, this week has marked the return to more 'normal' weather.
As a sort of warm-up, I persuaded my husband to take part in #nomowMay and leave the lawns alone for a while. As a result I now have a huge patch of daisies instead of plain green grass. Even though some of the high grasses have been cut, these flowers are staying for now. Maybe I'll make daisy chains as one of my wild activities.




I started this week with a different sort of art - making stars from tree and shrub clippings. Something to revisit around Halloween maybe.

A lot of my activities have been rather random - watching a robin hopping about the lawn while I sat in the shade, standing under the shelter of trees and listening to the rain drip and birds sing, and on a walk to the postbox I found honeysuckle flowering high up in a neighbour's tree. Standing under my own trees on a very windy day was more like forest surfing than bathing,




I spotted a goldfinch singing at the top of another's neighbour's leylandii. They don't often come into my garden but I've seen a couple of them around frequently through spring, and I'm hoping they may be nesting nearby. On Friday I nipped outside just before midnight to see the full strawberry moon,

 and Saturday was a round of torrential rain/blue sky and sun, repeated all day.









Sunday was a calmer day, and late afternoon I decided to go out - the first time since lockdown began - for a walk at Shipley Country Park. Spotting wild flowers, and walking under tall, old trees was a wonderfully refreshing change after so long.